Explode
by insidejokes
Summary: Thinking back, she realized that they saw it as a challenge. A particularly tough opponent, but still- they were the Office of Special Projects team, and this was just another target, just another mission. But then, she supposed, they were just another team.


_AN: First new story, woowoo! I'm a huge fan of the show, and am completely and utterly obsessed with DENSI! This story is an AU I wrote, set during Sans Voir. I wrote it after watching the very misleading sneak peek, where it seemed as though Sam had died..._  
_I own nothing- Hope you like it!_

When she thought back, she wondered what she could have done differently. Was there one moment, one word that had decided the future?  
If she hadn't waited to finish her donut before going up to Ops.  
If she'd complimented Sam's new, flashy gold watch.  
If she'd let her partner drive to the warehouse.  
If they had known what was going to happen...  
If only.

The team looked up, startled out of their waste paper basket-ball game by the sound of a train chugging through Ops- or, on closer inspection, Eric blowing into a large train whistle. "Hetty wants you up in Ops... you guys don't want to miss this."  
Sam and Callen stood immediately, and dodging a wad of paper thrown by Deeks, headed up to Ops laughing. As they walked by, Kensi noticed a new watch on Sam's wrist- she was strangely reminded of the 'overgrown frat-boy' watch from one of their previous cases. She was about to pass comment, but was interrupted as Deeks stood, and walked over to his partner's desk. "Coming?"  
She looked up at him then back down to her desk, where she looked longingly at the half finished, triple chocolate donut that was sitting on a plate. Waiting for her.  
Deeks followed her gaze, then met her eyes jokingly. "To eat, or not to eat... That is the question."  
"Oh shut up, Deeks." she replied, looking longingly at the donut.  
He looked at her for a second longer, then sighed melodramatically. "Just eat the donut Kens. I'll cover for you." She smiled like a little kid on Christmas, then paused herself (with great restraint) from shoving the rest of her donut in her mouth just long enough to say, a little too formally, "Thank you, Deeks."  
He worked his way up the stairs to Ops as she ate, and called loudly down to her from the landing. "It was either that, or have a sugar deprived psycho partner all day." He grinned impishly, and went on his way.  
She rolled her eyes, before devouring the rest of the donut and speeding up to Ops. As the doors slid shut smoothly behind her, she took in the rest of the team, and instantly noticed their stiff postures and the tense atmosphere.  
Hetty stepped in front of the group, looking each of them in the eye."We've made contact with someone I... well, I think you're all familiar with."  
She turned to face the big screen, and it instantly filled with a large picture of someone dangerously familiar. (Emphasis on the danger, Kensi thought drily)  
"The chameleon is back."

Thinking back, she realized that they saw it as a challenge. A particularly tough opponent, but still- they were the Office of Special Projects team, and this was just another target, just another mission.  
But then, she supposed, they were just another team.

It all happened too fast.  
One moment, it was just another investigation- albeit with higher stakes. Callen was the target, obviously, so it had been decided (after much difficulty) that he'd remain at OPS while Kensi, Deeks, and Sam went to check out the warehouse that they had traced the Chameleon to. They'd been looking through the-of course- abandoned warehouse, when Sam's phone had rang.  
That was when everything went wrong.

His expression dropped in an instant, and he yelled at them to get out of the building.  
"Bomb! Get out, now!"  
They'd both obeyed in an instant, and now, thinking back, she realized that it hadn't really sunk in. There was a bomb. The building was going to explode.  
All she remembered was running.  
It all happened too fast.  
They'd been running for the exit, the three of them, and she was vaguely aware of Deeks pushing her in front of him. She felt a rush of heat at her back, and instinctively turned her head to take in her surroundings.  
In that moment she saw a lot of things:  
Deeks, eyes full of panic, running for his life from a wall of fire, and all of a sudden it wasn't just a wall; it was everything, everywhere, and all she could see was fire.  
Then she caught a glimpse of Sam in that last second, and some insane part of her opened her mouth to say something (she forgot what) then her body was wrenched around by the force of the explosion and she felt a searing heat at her back and saw debris flying through the air around her.  
No, it wasn't just another investigation.  
She hit the ground with a force that knocked the breath out of her, and she lay, gasping for breath, forgetting entirely the proper procedure- because none of this was following procedure in even the smallest of ways.  
A vague part of her consciousness informed her that the explosion had stopped (It would never really stop), and she sat up gingerly. Her ears were ringing, and her head was spinning; but somehow she came to realize that she was alive. She immediately scanned the ground for her partner, and didn't know whether to be relieved or scared when she saw him lying face down on the ground a few feet away from her.  
She forced herself to crawl over to him, and turned him over, pulling him closer to her. Nothing- no response.  
Scared. She was definitely scared.  
"Deeks." She whispered, her voice cracking. "Deeks. Wake up Deeks." She shook him roughly, and scanned his eyes desperately for movement. Nothing. It could have been a second, or a million years, as she knelt looking at him desperately, helplessly.  
She felt a surge of emotion run through her- she wasn't sure exactly what it was. Anger? Fear? Whatever it was, it strengthened her, and she spoke with new conviction: "Come back, Deeks." She held his face in her hands, and pushed his singed hair out of his face. She would not lose her partner in some madman's exploding warehouse. She couldn't.

She didn't. Not her partner.

His eyes fluttered open, and he looked at her, blinking. "Kens..."  
"I'm here, Deeks." She pulled him up into a sitting position, and nearly nose to nose, they looked at each other; each breathlessly taking the other in and confirming that their partner was ok.

Looking back, she realized how quickly it all happened. For that brief moment (how foolish she was) she had thought that everything would be alright, and they'd make it through like they had so many times.  
Maybe 45 seconds had passed since the explosion...  
A brief moment indeed.

"Sam." she said, the panic setting in once more. They both got to their feet, and she scanned the scene. "Sam!" she called, her fear evident in her voice. She looked over the destroyed warehouse, and saw her partner doing the same. She couldn't see Sam.  
She thought she knew, then. She didn't want to, but she knew.  
"Sam. Sam, Sam..." She was vaguely conscious of repeating his name over and over, and it wasn't until she felt her partner's hands pulling her back that she realized she was standing about four feet into the wreckage. Her heart sped up (was that possible?) as she saw Deeks take a step forward, and was about to caution him when she realized he had an objective. She watched his shaking hands pull a piece of metal out of his path, and push a large square tile to the side.  
Then his breath caught, and he sunk to his knees.  
She fought her way forward, and elbowed him out of the way, then she looked at what he had been trying to see.

She was aware of the sirens, approaching in the distance.  
She noticed a shard of glass stuck in her left calf.  
Somewhere in the background, Deeks was talking to her, his own voice thick with barely suppressed emotion, and she realized she was crying; deep, ragged sobs that shuddered though her whole body.

She had seen a charred, burnt hand. A hand wearing a large, and- even now –flashy gold watch.

It all happened too fast.

It was a blur after.  
Deeks was in hospital for a concussion.  
Sam was gone.  
The chameleon had escaped.  
Sam was gone.

Gone.

She was left to re-enter Ops on her own.  
The worst thing, she thought, was everyone's reactions.  
Nell had burst out in tears, and left the room. Eric had looked at her in disbelief, and asked in a voice that was barely there, "Really? For real?" She met his eyes for the space of a heartbeat, and, lip trembling, he mumbled something about finding Nell and hurriedly left the room.  
She could have sworn she heard a sniffle as he left.  
When she went downstairs, she had sat in Hetty's office in silence, with the older woman looking at her appraisingly over the top of her tea cup. Had Kensi been paying attention (but why would she care to, now?) she would have noticed that the hands holding the cup were shaking ever so slightly.  
And that was all too much.

No one knew where Callen had went.

A few hours (or years, or centuries) later, she had taken Deeks back to the bullpen- neither of them felt like going home, despite the late hour. When they walked in, she had been surprised to see Callen sitting at his desk, filling out paperwork as if it was the most natural thing in the world.  
Sam was gone.  
Callen was doing paperwork.  
Of course.  
It had been silent-a terrible silence-for too long, then he spoke. "How?"  
The partners had looked at each other and after a moment, Deeks spoke. "We were running, and... we weren't-"  
"How," Callen cut him off, slowly standing up, "Did you let this happen?"  
At that point, she felt as if the air drained suddenly from her chest, and she felt strangely hollow.  
"You let him die, you left him behind. How? How!" Callen slammed his fist down on his desk, paper flying up in the air. "How could you do this? Why did you not wait for him?"  
His voice was raising up to a yell, and she shrank into her partner, hiding her face in his shoulder. His arm went around her, and she could feel him shaking. "Callen, we-" His voice broke. "We tried."  
Callen, now on the other side of the desk took another step closer to them, his voice shaking with rage. "You made it. He didn't! You two were partners, you had each other's back's, but his? He wasn't your partner, you didn't have to worry about him!"  
Deek's arm tightened around her, and she had a feeling he was trying to draw strength. "Sam is... was our teammate. I would never have left him if we could have helped, and neither would Kensi. You know we wouldn't, Callen."  
Barely a second after Deeks finished, Callen was glaring at him and loudly shouting him down. "But you obviously did. She obviously did- maybe because she was too worried about our liason instead of another agent!"  
She pulled herself apart from Deeks, shaking, and stared desperately at Callen. "You know... you know I wouldn't-"  
"What, Kensi? You wouldn't choose? Because guess what, you did! You did, and look what happened!"  
The three of them looked at each other for a few moments, and she became aware that the mission was completely silent. Callen's breath shuddered, and his eyes looked wildly around the mission, then almost to himself, said "Look what happened..."  
The three of them stared at each other, and it was so empty, yet so full of everything they couldn't say.  
Callen seemed to deflate, then, and a look of- what? Horror, sadness?- filled his features. He looked at the two younger members of his team, cowering slightly from the force of his anger, and suddenly, it seemed he didn't know what was happening anymore.  
"I'm sorry." He choked, so quietly they could barely hear him, then stalked out of the bullpen, and out of the building.  
There was no anger left in his eyes. There wasn't much of anything at all.  
And that, she thought, was what scared her the most.

Kensi was crying.  
_And Kensi Blye never cried_  
Sam was gone.  
_Why had she lived instead of him_  
The building was silent.  
_It was never silent_  
The team was nearly broken.  
_Just another team_  
Sam was gone.  
_Just another team_

And that, she thought, was what scared her the most.

It all happened too fast.


End file.
